Tuesday, July 25, 2006

The elite is hunkering down for a chaotic future

The behaviour of the elite bears out the theory that they know what's up re climate change and peak oil, and have decided that the best policy is to cement their control both domestically (via "terror" legislation etc), and globally in terms of resource control, in the expectation that when military and climactic chaos is raging around the planet, they will be able to retreat behind defense walls and banks of missiles, at high altitudes and in temperate lands. And that Iraq and Lebanon in particular are the first manifestations of this particular policy, and evince its characteristics of utter brutality and contempt for human life, particularly of the brown "Other".This fits because in all sorts of ways the fact of climate change represents(/ed) an unprecedented opportunity for mankind to become unavoidably aware of the unsustainability of capitalism (as well as its tendency to produce deepening immiseration of the majority, periodic crises and imperatives to subjugation of nature and man, and extreme mortality), and to surpass it and take up forms of society and production based on community, cooperation and equality - which of course meaning the ending of the elite, the sharing of wealth and power, are of course anathema to it.At every stage in human history, there is enough for everyone - enough food, enough water, enough climactic security, enough peace; but the elite's power and the need to sustain its power constitute a structural shape which forestalls the prospect of this sharing. The planet has never been threatened on this scale before, so the imperative of doing away with this structure is more acute than ever; it's a condition for our survival.Apparently, the Amazon rainforest is going to start dying out next year if it continues to experience drought. (from Qlipoth)Of the two possible directions our future could go: one is a rational and humane draw-down, based on cooperation and sharing; on conscientiousness and humanity; I have this image of people singing in the fields as they work. The rich giving up their abstract and unnecessary consumption for the sake of the fate of people in the developing world; countries opening borders to climate refugees, and sharing valuable land and water resources; people living and working in community, reusing and repairing instead of replacing their goods; the whole characterised by a commitment to life which is the product of human society when not constrained by hierarchy and especially by capitalist social relations.The other scenario is Blade Runner - isolated enclaves of security and prosperity, and a gulag elsewhere, third world homo sacer providing resources and primary products under the rule of the whip. The elite have chosen this one.I'm not clear what role the possibility of global economic collapse has in this situation, given that the elite seems to be doing nothing to prevent it and yet we can't assign incompetence to them anymore - is it something which plays into their hands, as economic desperation in poor countries might give them numerous excuses to reinforce their rule through military projection? Or does it constitute a weak point through which the push for revolution can occur?